Introduction--the meaning of literature 13 страница

Bacon's Place and Work. Although Bacon was for the greater part of his life a busy man of affairs, one cannot read his work without becoming conscious of two things,--a perennial freshness, which the world insists upon in all literature that is to endure, and an intellectual power which marks him as one of the great minds of the world.

Of late the general tendency is to give less and less prominence to his work in science and philosophy; but criticism of his Instauratio, in view of his lofty aim, is of small consequence. It is true that his "science" to-day seems woefully inadequate; true also that, though he sought to discover truth, he thought perhaps to monopolize it, and so looked with the same suspicion upon Copernicus as upon the philosophers. The practical man who despises philosophy has simply misunderstood the thing he despises. In being practical and experimental in a romantic age he was not unique, as is often alleged, but only expressed the tendency of the English mind in all ages. Three centuries earlier the monk Roger Bacon did more practical experimenting than the Elizabethan sage; and the latter's famous "idols" are strongly suggestive of the former's "Four Sources of Human Ignorance." Although Bacon did not make any of the scientific discoveries at which he aimed, yet the whole spirit of his work, especially of the Organum, has strongly influenced science in the direction of accurate observation and of carefully testing every theory by practical experiment. "He that regardeth the clouds shall not sow," said a wise writer of old; and Bacon turned men's thoughts from the heavens above, with which they had been too busy, to the earth beneath, which they had too much neglected. In an age when men were busy with romance and philosophy, he insisted that the first object of education is to make a man familiar with his natural environment; from books he turned to men, from theory to fact, from philosophy to nature,--and that is perhaps his greatest contribution to life and literature. Like Moses upon Pisgah, he stood high enough above his fellows to look out over a promised land, which his people would inherit, but into which he himself might never enter.

Richard Hooker (1554?-1600) In strong contrast with Bacon is Richard Hooker, one of the greatest prose writers of the Elizabethan Age. One must read the story of his life, an obscure and lowly life animated by a great spirit, as told by Izaak Walton, to appreciate the full force of this contrast. Bacon took all knowledge for his province, but mastered no single part of it. Hooker, taking a single theme, the law and practice of the English Church, so handled it that no scholar even of the present day would dream of superseding it or of building upon any other foundation than that which Hooker laid down. His one great work is The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,^[158] a theological and argumentative book; but, entirely apart from its subject, it will be read wherever men desire to hear the power and stateliness of the English language. Here is a single sentence, remarkable not only for its perfect form but also for its expression of the reverence for law which lies at the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization:

Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

Sidney and Raleigh. Among the prose writers of this wonderful literary age there are many others that deserve passing notice, though they fall far below the standard of Bacon and Hooker. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), who has already been considered as a poet, is quite as well known by his prose works, Arcadia, a pastoral romance, and the Defense of Poesie, one of our earliest literary essays. Sidney, whom the poet Shelley has eulogized, represents the whole romantic tendency of his age; while Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618) represents its adventurous spirit and activity. The life of Raleigh is an almost incomprehensible mixture of the poet, scholar, and adventurer; now helping the Huguenots or the struggling Dutch in Europe, and now leading an expedition into the unmapped wilds of the New World; busy here with court intrigues, and there with piratical attempts to capture the gold-laden Spanish galleons; one moment sailing the high seas in utter freedom, and the next writing history and poetry to solace his imprisonment. Such a life in itself is a volume far more interesting than anything that he wrote. He is the restless spirit of the Elizabethan Age personified.

Raleigh's chief prose works are the Discoverie of Guiana, a work which would certainly have been interesting enough had he told simply what he saw, but which was filled with colonization schemes and visions of an El Dorado to fill the eyes and ears of the credulous; and the History of the World, written to occupy his prison hours. The history is a wholly untrustworthy account of events from creation to the downfall of the Macedonian Empire. It is interesting chiefly for its style, which is simple and dignified, and for the flashes of wit and poetry that break into the fantastic combination of miracles, traditions, hearsay, and state records which he called history. In the conclusion is the famous apostrophe to Death, which suggests what Raleigh might have done had he lived less strenuously and written more carefully.

O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the star-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!

John Foxe (1516-1587). Foxe will be remembered always for his famous Book of Martyrs, a book that our elders gave to us on Sundays when we were young, thinking it good discipline for us to afflict our souls when we wanted to be roaming the sunlit fields, or when in our enforced idleness we would, if our own taste in the matter had been consulted, have made good shift to be quiet and happy with Robinson Crusoe. So we have a gloomy memory of Foxe, and something of a grievance, which prevent a just appreciation of his worth.

Foxe had been driven out of England by the Marian persecutions, and in a wandering but diligent life on the Continent he conceived the idea of writing a history of the persecutions of the church from the earliest days to his own. The part relating to England and Scotland was published, in Latin, in 1559 under a title as sonorous and impressive as the Roman office for the dead,-- Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum Maximarumque per Europam Persecutionum Commentarii. On his return to England Foxe translated this work, calling it the Acts and Monuments; but it soon became known as the Book of Martyrs, and so it will always be called. Foxe's own bitter experience causes him to write with more heat and indignation than his saintly theme would warrant, and the "holy tone" sometimes spoils a narrative that would be impressive in its bare simplicity. Nevertheless the book has made for itself a secure place in our literature. It is strongest in its record of humble men, like Rowland Taylor and Thomas Hawkes, whose sublime heroism, but for this narrative, would have been lost amid the great names and the great events that fill the Elizabethan Age.

Camden and Knox. Two historians, William Camden and John Knox, stand out prominently among the numerous historical writers of the age. Camden's Britannia (1586) is a monumental work, which marks the beginning of true antiquarian research in the field of history; and his Annals of Queen Elizabeth is worthy of a far higher place than has thus far been given it. John Knox, the reformer, in his History of the Reformation in Scotland, has some very vivid portraits of his helpers and enemies. The personal and aggressive elements enter too strongly for a work of history; but the autobiographical parts show rare literary power. His account of his famous interview with Mary Queen of Scots is clear-cut as a cameo, and shows the man's extraordinary power better than a whole volume of biography. Such scenes make one wish that more of his time had been given to literary work, rather than to the disputes and troubles of his own Scotch kirk.

Hakluyt and Purchas. Two editors of this age have made for themselves an enviable place in our literature. They are Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616) and Samuel Purchas (1575?-1626). Hakluyt was a clergyman who in the midst of his little parish set himself to achieve two great patriotic ends,--to promote the wealth and commerce of his country, and to preserve the memory of all his countrymen who added to the glory of the realm by their travels and explorations. To further the first object he concerned himself deeply with the commercial interests of the East India Company, with Raleigh's colonizing plans in Virginia, and with a translation of De Soto's travels in America. To further the second he made himself familiar with books of voyages in all foreign languages and with the brief reports of explorations of his own countrymen. His Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, in three volumes, appeared first in 1589, and a second edition followed in 1598-1600. The first volume tells of voyages to the north; the second to India and the East; the third, which is as large as the other two, to the New World. With the exception of the very first voyage, that of King Arthur to Iceland in 517, which is founded on a myth, all the voyages are authentic accounts of the explorers themselves, and are immensely interesting reading even at the present day. No other book of travels has so well expressed the spirit and energy of the English race, or better deserves a place in our literature.

Samuel Purchas, who was also a clergyman, continued the work of Hakluyt, using many of the latter's unpublished manuscripts and condensing the records of numerous other voyages. His first famous book, Purchas, His Pilgrimage, appeared in 1613, and was followed by Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, in 1625. The very name inclines one to open the book with pleasure, and when one follows his inclination--which is, after all, one of the best guides in literature--he is rarely disappointed. Though it falls far below the standard of Hakluyt, both in accuracy and literary finish, there is still plenty to make one glad that the book was written and that he can now comfortably follow Purchas on his pilgrimage.

Thomas North. Among the translators of the Elizabethan Age Sir Thomas North (1535?-1601?) is most deserving of notice because of his version of Plutarch's Lives (1579) from which Shakespeare took the characters and many of the incidents for three great Roman plays. Thus in North we read:

Cжsar also had Cassius in great jealousy and suspected him much: whereupon he said on a time to his friends: "What will Cassius do, think ye? I like not his pale looks." Another time when Cжsar's friends warned him of Antonius and Dolabella, he answered them again, "I never reckon of them; but these pale-visaged and carrion lean people, I fear them most," meaning Brutus and Cassius.

Shakespeare merely touches such a scene with the magic of his genius, and his Cжsar speaks:

Let me have men about me that are fat:
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look:
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

A careful reading of North's Plutarch and then of the famous Roman plays shows to how great an extent Shakespeare was dependent upon his obscure contemporary.

North's translation, to which we owe so many heroic models in our literature, was probably made not from Plutarch but from Amyot's excellent French translation. Nevertheless he reproduces the spirit of the original, and notwithstanding our modern and more accurate translations, he remains the most inspiring interpreter of the great biographer whom Emerson calls "the historian of heroism."

Summary of the Age of Elizabeth. This period is generally regarded as the greatest in the history of our literature. Historically, we note in this age the tremendous impetus received from the Renaissance, from the Reformation, and from the exploration of the New World. It was marked by a strong national spirit, by patriotism, by religious tolerance, by social content, by intellectual progress, and by unbounded enthusiasm.

Such an age, of thought, feeling, and vigorous action, finds its best expression in the drama; and the wonderful development of the drama, culminating in Shakespeare, is the most significant characteristic of the Elizabethan period. Though the age produced some excellent prose works, it is essentially an age of poetry; and the poetry is remarkable for its variety, its freshness, its youthful and romantic feeling. Both the poetry and the drama were permeated by Italian influence, which was dominant in English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration. The literature of this age is often called the literature of the Renaissance, though, as we have seen, the Renaissance itself began much earlier, and for a century and a half added very little to our literary possessions.

In our study of this great age we have noted (1) the Non-dramatic Poets, that is, poets who did not write for the stage. The center of this group is Edmund Spenser, whose Shepherd's Calendar (1579) marked the appearance of the first national poet since Chaucer's death in 1400. His most famous work is The Faery Queen. Associated with Spenser are the minor poets, Thomas Sackville, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, and Philip Sidney. Chapman is noted for his completion of Marlowe's poem, Hero and Leander, and for his translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Sidney, besides his poetry, wrote his prose romance Arcadia, and The Defense of Poesie, one of our earliest critical essays.

(2) The Rise of the Drama in England; the Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes; our first play, "Ralph Royster Doyster"; the first true English comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the first tragedy, "Gorboduc"; the conflict between classic and native ideals in the English drama.

(3) Shakespeare's Predecessors, Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe; the types of drama with which they experimented,--the Marlowesque, one-man type, or tragedy of passion, the popular Chronicle plays, the Domestic drama, the Court or Lylian comedy, Romantic comedy and tragedy, Classical plays, and the Melodrama. Marlowe is the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors. His four plays are "Tamburlaine," "Faustus," "The Jew of Malta," and "Edward II."

(4) Shakespeare, his life, work, and influence.

(5) Shakespeare's Successors, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."

(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief philosophical work is the Instauratio Magna (incomplete), which includes "The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to literary readers by his famous Essays. Minor prose writers are Richard Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North, the translator of Plutarch's Lives.

Selections for Reading. Spenser. Faery Queen, selections in Standard English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.

Minor Poets. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in Palgrave's Golden Treasury; Chapman's Homer, in Temple Classics.

The Early Drama. Play of Noah's Flood, in Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, or in Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, or in Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2; L.T. Smith's The York Miracle Plays.

Lyly. Endymion, in Holt's English Readings.

Marlowe. Faustus, in Temple Dramatists, or Mermaid Series, or Morley's Universal Library, or Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets; Edward II, in Temple Dramatists, and in Holt's English Readings.

Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice, Julius Cжsar, Macbeth, etc., in Standard English Classics (edited, with notes, with special reference to college-entrance requirements). Good editions of single plays are numerous and cheap. Hudson's and Rolfe's and the Arden Shakespeare are suggested as satisfactory. The Sonnets, edited by Beeching, in Athenжum Press Series.

Ben Jonson. The Alchemist, in Canterbury Poets Series, or Morley's Universal Library; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets, or Canterbury Poets Series; Selections from Jonson's Masques, in Evans's English Masques; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenжum Press Series.

Bacon. Essays, school edition (Ginn and Company); Northup's edition, in Riverside Literature Series (various other inexpensive editions, in the Pitt Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc.); Advancement of Learning, Bk. I, edited by Cook (Ginn and Company). Compare selections from Bacon, Hooker, Lyly, and Sidney, in Manly's English Prose.

Bibliography. ^[159] History. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 208-238; Cheyney, pp. 330-410; Green, ch. 7; Traill, Macaulay, Froude.

Special works. Creighton's The Age of Elizabeth; Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age; Winter's Shakespeare's England; Goadby's The England of Shakespeare; Lee's Stratford on Avon; Harrison's Elizabethan England.

Literature. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature; Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; S. Lee's Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century; Schilling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in Athenжum Press Series; Vernon Lee's Euphorion.

Spenser. Texts, Cambridge, Globe, and Aldine editions; Noel's Selected Poems of Spenser, in Canterbury Poets; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Arber's Spenser Anthology; Church's Life of Spenser, in English Men of Letters Series; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books, or in Literary Essays, vol. 4; Hazlitt's Chaucer and Spenser, in Lectures on the English Poets; Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.

The Drama. Texts, Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakesperean Drama, 2 vols., in Athenжum Press Series; Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes; the Temple Dramatists; Morley's Universal Library; Arber's English Reprints; Mermaid Series, etc.; Thayer's The Best Elizabethan Plays.

Gayley's Plays of Our Forefathers (Miracles, Moralities, etc.); Bates's The English Religious Drama; Schelling's The English Chronicle Play; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Boas's Shakespeare and his Predecessors; Symonds's Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Introduction to Hudson's Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters; Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature; Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook, in King's Classics.

Marlowe. Works, edited by Bullen; chief plays in Temple Dramatists, Mermaid Series of English Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Symonds's introduction, in Mermaid Series; Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.

Shakespeare. Good texts are numerous. Furness's Variorum edition is at present most useful for advanced work. Hudson's revised edition, each play in a single volume, with notes and introductions, will, when complete, be one of the very best for students' use.

Raleigh's Shakespeare, in English Men of Letters Series; Lee's Life of Shakespeare; Hudson's Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare; Fleay's Chronicle History of the Life and Work of Shakespeare; Dowden's Shakespeare, a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Shakespeare Primer (same author); Baker's The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist; Lounsbury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; The Text of Shakespeare (same author); Wendell's William Shakespeare; Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy; Hazlitt's Shakespeare and Milton, in Lectures on the English Poets; Emerson's Essay, Shakespeare or the Poet; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books; Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; Mrs. Jameson's Shakespeare's Female Characters (called also Characteristics of Women); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy; Brandes's William Shakespeare; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Mabie's William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man; The Shakespeare Apocrypha, edited by C. F. T. Brooke; Shakespeare's Holinshed, edited by Stone; Shakespeare Lexicon, by Schmidt; Concordance, by Bartlett; Grammar, by Abbott, or by Franz.

Ben Jonson. Texts in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.; Masques and Entertainments of Ben Jonson, edited by Morley, in Carisbrooke Library; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenжum Press Series.

Beaumont, Fletcher, etc. Plays in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, etc.; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama; Swinburne's Essays, in Essays in Prose and Poetry, and in Essays and Studies.

Bacon. Texts, Essays in Everyman's Library, etc.; Advancement of Learning in Clarendon Press Series, Library of English Classics, etc.; Church's Life of Bacon, in English Men of Letters Series; Nichol's Bacon's Life and Philosophy; Francis Bacon, translated from the German of K. Fischer (excellent, but rare); Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.

Minor Prose Writers. Sidney's Arcadia, edited by Somers; Defense of Poesy, edited by Cook, in Athenжum Press Series; Arber's Reprints, etc.; Selections from Sidney's prose and poetry in the Elizabethan Library; Symonds's Life of Sidney, in English Men of Letters; Bourne's Life of Sidney, in Heroes of the Nations; Lamb's Essay on Sidney's Sonnets, in Essays of Elia.

Raleigh's works, published by the Oxford Press; Selections by Grosart, in Elizabethan Library; Raleigh's Last Fight of the Revenge, in Arber's Reprints; Life of Raleigh, by Edwards and by Gosse. Richard Hooker's works, edited by Keble, Oxford Press; Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in Everyman's Library, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in Morley's Universal Library; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.

Lyly's Euphues, in Arber's Reprints; Endymion, edited by Baker; Campaspe, in Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama.

North's Plutarch's Lives, edited by Wyndham, in Tudor Library; school edition, by Ginn and Company. Hakluyt's Voyages, in Everyman's Library; Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Diverse Voyages; Payne's Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen; Froude's Essay, in Short Studies on Great Subjects.

Suggestive Questions. 1. What historical conditions help to account for the great literature of the Elizabethan age? What are the general characteristics of Elizabethan literature? What type of literature prevailed, and why? What work seems to you to express most perfectly the Elizabethan spirit?

2. Tell briefly the story of Spenser's life. What is the story or argument of the Faery Queen? What is meant by the Spenserian stanza? Read and comment upon Spenser's "Epithalamion." Why does the "Shepherd's Calendar" mark a literary epoch? What are the main qualities of Spenser's poetry? Can you quote or refer to any passages which illustrate these qualities? Why is he called the poets' poet?

3. For what is Sackville noted? What is the most significant thing about his "Gorboduc"? Name other minor poets and tell what they wrote.

4. Give an outline of the origin and rise of the drama in England. What is meant by Miracle and Mystery plays? What purposes did they serve among the common people? How did they help the drama? What is meant by cycles of Miracle plays? How did the Moralities differ from the Miracles? What was the chief purpose of the Interludes? What type of drama did they develop? Read a typical play, like "Noah's Flood" or "Everyman," and write a brief analysis of it.

5. What were our first plays in the modern sense? What influence did the classics exert on the English drama? What is meant by the dramatic unities? In what important respect did the English differ from the classic drama?

6. Name some of Shakespeare's predecessors in the drama? What types of drama did they develop? Name some plays of each type. Are any of these plays still presented on the stage?

7. What are Marlowe's chief plays? What is the central motive in each? Why are they called one-man plays? What is meant by Marlowe's "mighty line"? What is the story of "Faustus"? Compare "Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust," having in mind the story, the dramatic interest, and the literary value of each play.

8. Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare's life. What fact in his life most impressed you? How does Shakespeare sum up the work of all his predecessors? What are the four periods of his work, and the chief plays of each? Where did he find his plots? What are his romantic plays? his chronicle or historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and a comedy? Name some of Shakespeare's best tragedies, comedies, and historical plays. Which play of Shakespeare's seems to you to give the best picture of human life? Why is he called the myriad-minded Shakespeare? For what reasons is he considered the greatest of writers? Can you explain why Shakespeare's plays are still acted, while other plays of his age are rarely seen? If you have seen any of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, how do they compare in interest with a modern play?

9. What are Ben Jonson's chief plays? In what important respects did they differ from those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of "The Alchemist" or "The Silent Woman." Name other contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare. Give some reasons for the preлminence of the Elizabethan drama. What causes led to its decline?

10. Tell briefly the story of Bacon's life. What is his chief literary work? his chief educational work? Why is he called a pioneer of modern science? Can you explain what is meant by the inductive method of learning? What subjects are considered in Bacon's Essays? What is the central idea of the essay you like best? What are the literary qualities of these essays? Do they appeal to the intellect or the emotions? What is meant by the word "essay," and how does Bacon illustrate the definition? Make a comparison between Bacon's essays and those of some more recent writer, such as Addison, Lamb, Carlyle, Emerson, or Stevenson, having in mind the subjects, style, and interest of both essayists.

11. Who are the minor prose writers of the Elizabethan Age? What did they write? Comment upon any work of theirs which you have read. What is the literary value of North's Plutarch? What is the chief defect in Elizabethan prose as a whole? What is meant by euphuism? Explain why Elizabethan poetry is superior to the prose.

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